Religeon in Deadfire

[Wormerine]

 

They control the wheel of souls and many aspects of life.

 

As far as I understood, they do not. It was always there, the engwithians just sucked souls from it to create and feed the gods. The Gods are nothing but artificial parasites. Just like in real life.

https://youtu.be/pWdd6_ZxX8c

Edited January 8, 2018 by Wormerine

[Lord_Mord]

 

 

Seriously. That's how I understood it. That's not just me nagging around. The wheel existed before the gods did. The Engwithians took souls from it and built the gods, which feed on ... surprise ... more souls. But the wheel already worked the way it does before all of that. The gods existence did not change things in that regard. Their purpose was just to give people moral guidance or something like that. Did I interpret something into the game or was that basically what happened?

[Wormerine]

 

 

Seriously. That's how I understood it. That's not just me nagging around. The wheel existed before the gods did. The Engwithians took souls from it and built the gods, which feed on ... surprise ... more souls. But the wheel already worked the way it does before all of that. The gods existence did not change things in that regard. Their purpose was just to give people moral guidance or something like that. Did I interpret something into the game or was that basically what happened?

No, you are very right. That wasn't really a part Dude's quote was refering to. My bad on making it unclear. Below is a more specific version of my previous post. Also, not really an attempt to disagree, but acknowledgment that PoE does a great job with the subject, an everyone can approach the Gods in PoE with different attitude and draw different conclusions.

 

 The Gods are nothing but artificial parasites. Just like in real life.

[SonicMage117]

The myth that a "god" can be killed was always a troublesome concept to me, mainly derived of greek mythology's immortality ideals. ( Find a cursed sword and you will be able to slay so and so when they are an all-powerful being).

 

Evenmore I always found the concept of "We do not believe in anything, therefore we have no religion." as that is actually a seperation from all things supernatural/spiritual so that would technically be a religion, as denying that spiritualism is the in hindsight admitting fear of it - thus unrealizing that they are admitting that it exists. Pillars was a perfect example of this.

 

But as a real life Christian, I have to say that that I'm glad that these groups of people exists in Pillars as they do in real life. It's a beautiful thing to have diversity but even more to know that Obsidian is paying this much attention to detail in their games. Religion is a beautiful thing

Edited January 8, 2018 by SonicMage117

[Sedrefilos]

Spirituality is a personal thing, a way to try to explain things to youself and maybe become better. Religion is a dogma of how the world should work under the commands of a supernatural dictator.

Two different things.

I believe in no deity myself, no greater power from the beyond; but I'm ok with the first. Not so with the latter.

 

Pillars deals good with both

[injurai]

SM17, you're falling into some semantic issues. What you call religions in other people, they say they have merely a belief and a non-theistic one at that. I'd say religion is a belief that one endows with a heightened credulity on revealed truths. Truths which cannot be verified on the efforts of a conscious observer alone. Clearly there is a reason why the religious talk about faith while the non-religious talk about that which is knowable and that which is likely but should not be depended on as a truth.

[Lord_Mord]

 

No, you are very right. That wasn't really a part Dude's quote was refering to. My bad on making it unclear. Below is a more specific version of my previous post. Also, not really an attempt to disagree, but acknowledgment that PoE does a great job with the subject, an everyone can approach the Gods in PoE with different attitude and draw different conclusions

 

Ah OK. I can live with that. Because:

 

 

It's your opinion, that it's just my opinion. Dudeception. Ha!

 

 

[SonicMage117]

True, and that's a great example. Speaking of, I look at how much Scientific fact has been proven wrong, what we have knowledge on has always been proven false if we look at history of truths and allegations alike. As fresh and smarter minds of an evolved culture conducts new studys ahd suggests new tactics to reach new efforts, usually resulting in an update of the "truth".

 

It never occured to me until I read just now, how much religion has influenced and pressed such a matter til now. Perhaps, scientists and those into scientology will find a way to prove and/or disprove religion as a whole one day but since they cannot even figure out how build a pyramid or a mayan temple without lying, I'm going on a limb to say it will be awhile.

[PneumaticFire]

There was a real neat interview with Eric Fenstermaker about PoE and there was an excerpt about themes and faith which I found super interesting - how much writiers perspective and origin of an idea differs from what I would expect. As it touches “faith” in pillars and where it came from I think it’s worth reposting. Full interview can be found here:

 

http://www.rpgcodex.net/content.php?id=10231

 

“We had two major themes we wanted to work with, both of which seemed natural and important to discuss for this particular story and setting. I'll suggest that people who think one of them is about faith might want to broaden their perspective a bit. Both themes are present in the player's story and at least one is present in each companion's story, though which theme it is varies. White March (taken as a whole) puts a spin on both, but tends to focus on one in particular.

 

Part of the genesis of the Pillars story in particular was the observation that in most fantasy settings, the gods are taken for granted. You know they're up there on Olympus or in the heavens or wherever, and you have some idea of how your afterlife is going to look, and what steps you have to take to improve your standing in that regard. Characters in these worlds, on some level, aren't quite human if they don't have to wonder about these things. It's a romantic and appealing fantasy to have all of that figured out and to only need to worry about killing your enemies and pleasing your gods and boning other similarly carefree and attractive violet-eyed adventurers, and that's resulted in the prevalence of that kind of setting within the genre. But if you go that route you miss out on one of the best ways to test your characters and see what they are made out of, and you also miss out on a powerful source of relatability that just about every other genre has access to (and futuristic sci-fi often thrives on).

 

This wasn't an idea that came about immediately, even when writing what would become he final treatment, but when it did, it led to the game story as you see it now.”

 

This I appreciate, a 'testing of the faith' or uncertainty and a testing of the character as they word it here.  As long as it is this, and I'd personally like it if they leave it open to possibilities.  As I mentioned earlier, I'd find it a bit bland, jaded and/or cynical if their 'answer' in the end is total relativism of, nothing is true, only what we personally believe and manifest.  

This may be a very interesting topic in the real world, but in settings full of magic, wonder, powers and gods, please allow the potential for more, instead of bleak deconstruction, based on personal biases in our real life outlooks and perspectives.  Again not accusing anyone of doing this just yet, just voicing a concern of the potential of this occurring in pillars 2.

[PneumaticFire]

 

 

I'm also a little wary of a growing trend I personally feel is happening in current popular media, to dismiss, downplay or to outright villainize anything that mildly resembles the positives of organised or communal faith and religion, both historically and contemporarily.   Or that of theism, which is substituted for a bland extreme relativism and bleak critique with no positive alternative other than jaded deconstruction.

Personal agency and deriving meaning from our own feelings and thoughts on something are wonderful things, but I'd like to think, in such a wonderful world, there are powers (whomever they may be) that are above and beyond our personal convictions manifested, even if its powers or sources beyond the gods as they are known in the game.

 

How wonderful it is to know, that no matter how far you've come, how independent and developed you are, how much you found out about the world around you, how elaborated your moral values, that there is always someone above you in the chain of command to have the last word. Keeps unwanted responsibility away very effectively.

 

 

 

 

Or on the flip side, what a security blanket it is, to believe that we are not accountable for any action or choice we make in this life once we take our last breath, and we can merely choose to live on any personal impulse or whim that we have the courage to get away with without immediate consequence from others.

 

I find discussing these issues with most people, they have a chip on their shoulder, and no matter the reasoning presented, or how they cloak their opinion and present it as being grounded in logic, there is always an extreme emotional bias involved that will override any convincing reasoning one presents. 

 

So I don't intend do debate 'real life' belief systems here, I'd be surprised if people start shoe-horning them here in the context of a fantasy setting in which Gods, powers, magic and so on are common place. 

Interesting covo so far though

Edited January 8, 2018 by PneumaticFire

[SonicMage117]

Yeah, nobody should start shoe-horning on either side, hopefully. This was never intended to be a religion vs anti-religion cult exploitation but if it happens I imagine the thread would just get locked. Bigotry on either side was stated not to be tolerated by the guidelines if I remember correctly.

 

Maybe there's already been a little bit of jabbing (I can't tell), most probably taken with a grain of salt by the other party lol I can't imagine anyone will be really offended by their fellow forum user on here but for the forums sake and to look presentational to new members and/or guests, it's probably best to keep the real-life politics in the politics section